What is a deep link?

Definition

Deep links are subpages of a website. That is, this link takes the user “deeper” into the website. A deep link belongs to the genre of hyperlinks.

The purpose of deep links

The purpose of these links is easy to explain. Especially on websites with many menu items or large tables of contents, it is not always easy to find your way around.

A deep link leads the user directly to a page that is relevant to him. This increases the usability, as he does not have to land on the main page first and find his way around by himself.

It used to be very easy to generate traffic with deep links. Today, search engines are more sophisticated and search query results are much more accurate.

Deep links also pass on link juice and thus have an influence on PageRank. So they also have some importance for search engine optimization.

Relevance for SEO

Deep links belong to the high-quality links in search engine optimization. Despite all this, it can happen that deep links are identified as spam.

This can happen if, for example, only one backlink leads to the start page, but dozens of deep links lead to a specific subpage. Equally untrustworthy is placing a deep link of a website with a good domain popularity that leads to a comparably inferior subpage of a website.

Conclusion

Deep links are generally useful for SEO and promote website usability. Still, you have to be careful not to identify these links as spam. Of course, it can happen that a subpage gets many “natural” backlinks, because it has e.g. a “natural” link. offers high-quality content.

According to Google, however, the algorithms are able to differentiate this.